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Kathleen Folbigg has spent the past 18 years in prison for one of the most horrific crimes imaginable: killing all four of her babies. 因为一宗难以想象的可怕罪行，凯瑟琳·佛比格已经在监狱里待了18年了：她杀害了自己全部四名婴儿。 But new scientific evidence suggests that's not what happened. 但最新科学证据表明事实也许并非如此。  Genomic testing shows at least two of the Australian's babies likely died from a previously undiscovered genetic mutation that led to heart complications -- meaning she may have been wrongfully imprisoned for almost two decades. 基因组检测显示，这四名澳大利亚婴儿中至少有两名可能死于此前未被发现的基因突变，并导致的心脏并发症，这意味着她可能被冤枉地关押了近20年。 The finding has prompted 90 scientists -- including two Australian Nobel Laureates -- to ask the governor of New South Wales to pardon Folbigg and let her walk free. 这一发现促使90名科学家——包括两名澳大利亚诺贝尔奖得主——请求新南威尔士州州长赦免佛比格，并释放她。 If that happens, Folbigg's case will be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Australian history. 如果这真的发生了，佛比格的案件将成为澳大利亚历史上最严重的司法不公案件之一。 The ramifications don't end there. 事情并未就此结束。 While scientists are still learning about the causes of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) -- an umbrella term for when children die suddenly from unexplained causes -- the findings in Folbigg's case may help other parents who are grieving the unexpected loss of their own children. 当科学家们还在研究婴儿猝死综合症(SIDS)的原因时，佛比格的研究结果可能会帮助其他因意外失去自己孩子而悲痛不已的父母，SIDS是一个笼统的术语，指的是儿童因不明原因突然死亡。 Right from the start, Folbigg's life was marred by tragedy. 从一开始，佛比格的人生就笼上了悲剧的阴影。 When she was 18 months old, her father stabbed her mother to death and served 15 years in prison for murder before being deported to England. 在她18个月大的时候，她的父亲刺死了她的母亲，并以谋杀罪在监狱里服刑15年，之后被驱逐到了英国。 She was a disruptive child with behavioral issues that one medical officer said could indicate she was abused as a baby by her father, according to a 2019 inquiry into Folbigg's convictions. 根据2019年对佛比格定罪的调查，她是一个有行为问题的坏孩子，一名医务官员表示，这可能表明她在婴儿时期曾被父亲虐待。 In the late 1980s, she married Craig Folbigg, who she had met at a disco in the Australian city of Newcastle. 20世纪80年代末，她嫁给了克雷格·佛比格，两人是在澳大利亚纽卡斯尔市的一个迪斯科舞厅认识的。 They had their first child when she was 21, a boy named Caleb. 她21岁时，他们有了第一个孩子，男孩名叫凯勒。  "(She) described herself as feeling completed, with a husband, home and a baby," the inquiry noted. “(她)说自己感觉很满足，有了丈夫，有了家，还有了孩子，”调查指出。 Then, when he was just 19 days old, Caleb died. 后来，凯勒才19天大的时候，就夭折了。 The cause of death was given as SIDS -- essentially, the absence of evidence of any other cause. 死亡原因被列为SIDS————基本上是没有任何其他原因的不明死亡。 Folbigg soon fell pregnant again, and in 1990 she had another son, Patrick. Tests showed he was normal and healthy. 佛比格很快又怀孕了，1990年她又有了一个儿子，帕特里克。检查显示他很正常很健康。 But at four months, he had an unexplained ALTE, an apparent life-threatening event, that left him with brain damage and seizures. 但在四个月大时，他出现了一种无法解释的急性脑梗死，一种明显危及生命的事件，导致他的大脑受损和癫痫发作。 Four months later, he died as a consequence of seizures. 四个月后，他死于癫痫。 Her third child, Sarah, died age 10 months -- her cause of death was listed as SIDS. When her fourth daughter, Laura, died age 18 months on March 1, 1999, police started investigating. 她的第三个孩子萨拉在10个月大的时候去世了——她的死因被列为SIDS。1999年3月1日，她的第四个女儿劳拉18个月大时也去世后，警方开始调查此事。 The couple's marriage broke down. 这对夫妇的婚姻破裂了。 After Folbigg left, her husband found her diary and read an entry that he said made him want to vomit. 佛比格离开后，她的丈夫发现了她的日记，读到其中的一段后，他说这段让他感觉恶心。 He took the diary to police on May 19, 1999, according to the inquiry. 调查显示，他1999年5月19日时把这本日记交给了警察。 On April 19, 2001, Folbigg was arrested and charged with four counts of murder. 2001年4月19日，佛比格被逮捕并被指控犯有四起谋杀。 Her childhood best friend Tracy Chapman describes Folbigg as a caring animal lover who was a "really good mom." 她童年时最好的朋友特雷西·查普曼形容佛比格是一位有爱心的动物爱好者，也是一位“真正的好妈妈”。 But at trial in 2003, the prosecution argued Folbigg had smothered her children. 但在2003年的审判中，检方认为佛比格闷死了她的孩子。 There was no conclusive forensic proof -- instead, the prosecution relied on a maxim credited to British pediatrician Roy Meadow: "One sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proven otherwise." 没有确凿的法医证据——相反，控方依据的是英国儿科医生罗伊·梅多的一句格言:“一个婴儿猝死是一场悲剧，两个是可疑的，三个是谋杀，直到有证据证明事实并非如此。” The prosecutor compared the chance of the children dying of natural causes to pigs flying. 检察官将这些儿童自然死亡的几率比作猪会飞一样不可能。 "I can't disprove that one day some piglets might be born with wings and that they might fly. Is that some reasonable doubt? No," the prosecutor told the jury during the 2003 trial. “我无法否认有一天一些小猪生下来就有翅膀，它们可能会飞。这是合理的怀疑吗?不，”检察官在2003年的审判中告诉陪审团。 "There has never ever been before in the history of medicine that our experts have been able to find any case like this. It is preposterous. It is not a reasonable doubt. It is a fantasy and, of course, the Crown does not have to disprove a fanciful idea." “在医学史上，我们的专家从来没有发现过这样的病例。这是荒谬的。这不是一种合理的怀疑，而是一种幻想，当然，法官并不一定要推翻这种幻想。”  The prosecution pointed to Folbigg's journals, which they said contained virtual admissions of guilt. 检方提到了佛比格的日记，他们说，日记中实际上包含了认罪的内容。 "I feel like the worst mother on this Earth, scared that (Laura) will leave me now, like Sarah did. I knew I was short tempered and cruel sometimes to her and she left, with a bit of help," Folbigg wrote in one. “我觉得自己是世界上最糟糕的母亲，害怕劳拉会像莎拉一样离开我。我知道我脾气暴躁，有时对她很残酷，她在仅仅得到一点帮助后就离开了，”福尔比格在其中一封邮件中写道。 "It can't happen again. I'm ashamed of myself. I can't tell (my husband) about it because he'll worry about leaving her with me." “不能再发生了。我为自己感到羞愧。我不能告诉(我丈夫)这件事，因为他会担心把她留给我。” Folbigg didn't confess, there was no obvious motive, and no one claimed to have seen her murder her children. 佛比格没有认罪，没有明显的动机，也没有人声称看到她谋杀了自己的孩子。 But the jury found her guilty of the murder of three children and the manslaughter of one. 但是陪审团发现她谋杀了三个孩子，并误杀了一个孩子。 Folbigg was eventually sentenced on appeal to 30 years in prison with a non-parole period of 25 years. 佛比格最终上诉被判30年监禁，25年里不得假释。  By the time she is eligible for parole, Folbigg will be 60 years old. 等到她有资格获得假释时，那时候她应该已经60岁了。  The term SIDS was introduced in 1969 as a way to categorize the unexplainable. SIDS一词是1969年提出的，用来对无法解释的事物进行分类。 By the 1980s, cases that might have been classified as homicides in the past were attributed to SIDS, UK pediatric pathologist John L. Emery noted in a 1985 paper. 英国儿科病理学家约翰·艾尔·埃莫里在1985年的一篇论文中指出，到了20世纪80年代，过去可能被归类为杀人案的病例如今都被归为SIDS病例。 By the 1990s, scientists had developed a model demonstrating that a range of factors lead to SIDS, including exposure to smoke and sleeping position. 到20世纪90年代，科学家们开发了一个模型，证明了一系列可以导致SIDS的原因，包括暴露在烟雾中和睡姿不良等。 Over the past two decades, however, there has been a growing understanding of genetic factors. 然而，在过去的二十年里，人们对遗传因素的了解越来越多。 One of the first studies into this came in 2001, when Mayo Clinic pediatric cardiologist Michael Ackerman and a team of scientists linked a mutation in the SCN5A gene to SIDS. 2001年，梅奥诊所的小儿心脏病专家迈克尔·阿克曼和一组科学家将SCN5A基因突变与SIDS联系了起来，这是最早的研究之一。 Since then, genetic variations in more than 30 different genes have been linked to SIDS and sudden unexpected deaths in children (SUDC) -- a term for children who die when they are more than one year old. 从那时起，超过30种不同基因的基因变异被认为与SIDS和儿童猝死(SUDC)有关，SUDC是指一岁以上儿童的死亡。 Studies now indicate up to 35% of SIDS cases may be explained by genetic factors, although the cause of the majority of cases remains unclear. 目前的研究表明，高达35%的SIDS病例可能与遗传因素有关，尽管大多数病例的原因尚不清楚。 问题 文中提到SIDS是什么意思？ 留言回复正确答案，前五名朋友可以获得红包奖励哦，赶快来试试吧！ 感谢关注 跟Amber一起看世界 |
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